Edinburgh Caledonia and Me: Sammy Hyett
As Edinburgh Caledonia prepare to face SWPL Hearts in the Women's Scottish Cup Third Round, founder Sammy Hyett shares what the tie and club mean to her in her final season as a player.
On Sunday SWF League One promotion chasers Edinburgh Caledonia make the short trip across Scotland’s capital to face SWPL Hearts in the Third Round of the Women’s Scottish Cup.
Amongst the players aiming to take to the pitch at Oriam is Sammy Hyett with the club’s founder, captain and current chairperson set to hang up her boots at the end of the season.
“My knees aren’t as forgiving as they once were so I’m calling it a day at the end of the season”, said the Aberdonian as we settled in for a chat far longer than either of us had anticipated, “but the opportunity we have on Sunday (to play against Hearts) is a nice checkpoint in these last six months.”
Hyett’s passion for football, which comes through loud and clear, started as a four-year-old alongside identical twin Rachael; football the only choice for the pair with no spaces available on their local gymnastics team.
“My mum told me we had to keep going along, I would throw a huff but my sister was really enjoying it so we kept going, we got quite good at it and then took it from there.” Women’s football is never quite as easy as childhood dreams make them out to be and despite the growing presence of the game in Scotland today like most of her generation Hyett has her own tales to share.
“I remember we would train in the gravel car parks outside of Pittodrie Stadium while the boys would go on the pitch. We used to wear the old Atlantic Telecom kit at the time and I was given No. 16, Rachid Belabed’s number (the Moroccan had a fleeting spell in the north-east in the early 2000’s). The kit was enormous, they were hand-me-downs and playing on gravel your knees would be a wreck.”
Having been involved in national team training camps with future internationals such as Suzanne Grant (now Winters) and Joelle Murray she would eventually move to study at Heriot Watt University, on the same grounds where the now sprawling Oriam campus sits and where, in a nod to Hyatt’s past, Edinburgh Caledonia will face Hearts on Sunday.
“I picked the university before I picked my course, because of football and because the Hearts set-up was there.”, although there will be no conflict on interest when her side face the Jambos as she’s quick to add Hearts’ are not her team before continuing, “I turned up at the freshers fair for the football and there were over a hundred people but I was the only girl. I was going to be allowed to train with them but even if I was better I wasn’t going to be allowed to play so the next year I set up a team, got it affiliated with the university and it kept on going from there.”
Fast forward to 2012 and Hyett was on the founders trail once again as the foundations of the club we are discussing began to take shape, although an original affiliation with a men’s side claiming to be one of the oldest in the world never felt quite right, “At the time I was injured but I had no real interest in coaching, but I knew that I wanted to be able to watch so setting up a club seemed a good way to do that but it wasn’t long before I realised we would be stronger on our own and with a few rivals from other teams we detached, some of which are still involved today.”
“The name was important too”, she continues, “it represents the different cultures and nationalities in the team and that has continued to this day. Edinburgh Caledonia came to be in 2013 and it has led to a club and a badge that means so much to so many people. I’ve been at every game since and I’d like to think we have gone from strength to strength.”
Last season long-serving manager Maggie Wilson, who at the Scotland v England Nations League clash in December received a Scotland cap in recognition for her service as one of the early pioneers of the national team, stepped down to be succeeded by Euan Cole.
“Maggie was great, she was everything that the team needed, and really helped push us on but it came to the time where she wanted to look after her health. Needing a new a coach I asked a friend to come down to help out at some of the training sessions, that friend is Euan Cole, and after a bit of cajoling he agreed to take it on.”
Wilson’s influence on the pitch has been lasting but a story away from it that really shines a light on the impact the former Scotland international had, “The core of the team, we’ve become like family.”, reflects Hyett, “At Christmas just past about fifteen of us older players sat around Maggie’s table for Christmas Dinner and she put on a massive feast. That doesn’t happen at every club.”
Fortunately, Cole has picked up where Wilson left off and Caley currently sit second in the fourth tier Scottish Women’s League One, five points behind leaders Forfar Farmington but with two games in hand. “Each season is a new challenge” explains Hyett, “You don’t know who you are going to be coming up against, you don’t know the opposition. There’s been a lot of changes so a lot of time you start the season with a clean slate.”
Part of those changes saw the club have to decide whether it wanted to continue as a recreational (where the focus is on participation over administration) or performance side (where the opportunity to reach the very top of the club game in Scotland exists).
“We always wanted to be a performance side”, Hyett responds immediately when I ask about her decision, “and to take the club as high as we can.”
“As part of that we needed to implement a pathway. We interviewed a number of girls clubs and eventually we formed a partnership with Currie FC which has been going for a couple of seasons now, although we still have some gaps to close.”
Edinburgh Caledonia recently moved to Meadowbank Stadium, alongside Hibernian and SWPL2 Boroughmuir Thistle, and Hyett is full of praise for Hearts rivals, “We used to play at Lasswade (a small village on the outskirts of Edinburgh) and you were lucky if there was a dug out there on a Sunday”, she laughs, “There was one week there was a bin that was burnt into the pitch, we just had to cordon it off and hope the ball didn’t go out towards that area!”
“When I managed to secure Meadowbank and found out that both Hibs and Boroughmuir were going to be there too, even if it was just a name, that feeling of saying we were playing at the stadium as Hibs, for me personally, meant a lot.”
“I’m in touch with them regularly and if they need to move a game for TV purposes or something else we work it out and then, if there are times when that needs to be reciprocated, then we work that out too. I think that comes from the appreciation of where women’s football has come from and the people involved remembering what it had been like in the past.”
“Thanks to sponsors and lottery funding this has been the first season I’ve been able to provide full kit for the players at no cost to them. Even at our level we are seeing the game growing. One of our sponsors is massive in India and we keep joking as a club that we could become the next Wrexham!”
Of course it will be maroon shirts as opposed to green that Hyett and her teammates will face on Sunday but she’s unfazed by the prospect of facing a side that have increased investment significantly in recent seasons, “Eva (Olid) has obviously done a great job. We know how fortunate we are to be involved in this game (a 2-1 victory over Armadale Thistle in the Second Round secured Caley’s third round spot) but we are going to try and treat it like any other game.”
A Scottish Cup runner-up as part of that Cove Rangers side that lost 8-0 to Hibernian at McDiarmid Park in the 2005 final, one thing Hyett hopes for is to avoid the 16-0 scoreline that befell her side when they hosted the competition’s most successful side, Glasgow City at the same stage of the competition in 2019, although there is still a fond memory in there, “It’s one of my favourite photos, sliding into Leanne Crichton, I thought it was an OK tackle, and Hayley Lauder is stood in the background with her hands in the air.”
Being competitive is the reoccurring ambition she has for her side come Sunday, “Scottish Cup shocks are rare in the women’s game but as time goes on there will be more possibilities of that happening. If we can minimise that gap in the eyes of those little girls on the sidelines watching then that will do a lot for us.”
“A lot of our Currie girls from the pathway are coming along and a lot of them are Hearts fans. To give them that opportunity to meet some of their favourite players afterwards and with Hearts hopefully walking away with the feeling that they have been in a tough game, that would mean a helluva lot.”
Before finishing our conversation I ask what Sunday’s game would mean to her.
“Last year I had six months out injured and I got a taste of what not playing was like, people kept making suggestions for hobbies. I was never keen, nothing beats football, but my body knows it’s nearing its time.”
“I’ve been involved in bigger games but because of this club, and with this being my final six months as a player, to have the opportunity to be able to go out with a bit of a bang against an SWPL side, with this team, it’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
Edinburgh Caledonia face Heart of Midlothian at 3pm on Sunday 7th January in the Third Round of the Women’s Scottish Cup at Oriam National Performance Centre.
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